This article discusses following locations:
It's 08. June 2022, sitting on our awesome neighbor Franzi's couch because we sublet our flat for our absence. Tomorrow our plane leaves for Colombia which moves us out of Europe for almost five months.
So continuing where we left off: We spent 9 days in Turkey, every day sun, every day flying and snorkelling. Combined with the great and plentiful - all inclusive - food (huge moussaka fan) we had to intervene on the third day and started doing morning sports and rationing our intake.
Inflation is visible, all the restaurant menus had taped over old prices that you could see shine through...50% lower than the current prices.
We might have hit a timewise sweet spot, though: Paragliding season is almost over, we saw few other pilots but the mass tourism hasn't started yet.
Silke and I on the takeoff on 1700AMSL
Some stunning evening flights with stunning views:
On the second day, we did a nice XC flight to the nearby Uyluk Tepe mountain.
Silke had some thermal difficulties so we landed near a farm where we met Ali, who drove us with his buggy car to his home for a turkish coffee, some splendid view and an easy minibus drive back to our hotel in Ölüdeniz (50km for under 2 USD)...
On the seventh day we had strong south wind but wanted to land in the butterfly bay, a secluded beautiful beach down some steep ridges.
I never ever had such strong headwind before. You can tell when your variometer shows you 8kmh speed and you push the speedbar and it becomes 2kmh (realising this was both backwards speed).
While landing, the blaring music of the party boats and a dangerously close flying drone welcomed us but fortunately the boats left after we landed.
Silke got bitten by some dogs upon landing but other than that we really felt very welcome on the beach. After enjoying some nice fish, we snorkelled and saw two octopodes in around 4m depth and in the evening took a ship back to Oludeniz, super awesome day!
On our last day, mid flight, my harness risers broke but apart from a little shock, nothing bad happened and Advance, our supplier answered my email that I sent before even packing my glider within minutes with replacement material. A truly exceptional company!
From Turkey we travelled onwards to Vienna and enjoyed a day in a more vegan friendly culture with lots of beautiful palaces and places.
From Vienna we took the train to Wieselburg and spent a wonderful wedding day of Domi and Isabel.
We wanted to travel back to Switzerland by train, but got offered a ride by Ivy and Cedi. After half an hour of drive, the warning message "Stop, the motor might get destroyed" showed us, how good unlimited roaming is while Ivy phoned with insurance and towing service on Pfingst Monday, a day where no shop was open. Eventually we got the train back via Salzburg where we spent a night and had an early morning scenic walk around the old town where almost everything is called Mozart.
Back in Zurich we met our friends for the last time for 5 months and were surprised with a sunny evening at the lake.
After about an hour, the rain set in, heavily, which made for some super fun team building since we were all holding an outdated paragliding rescue as a tent.
Spontaneously we switched to the pavillion at Bürkliplatz where we had some more beer and did some Salsa dancing.
We'll absolutely miss the weather swings, mountains and people so much but wish you all a wonderful summer time and see you in November!
Franzi wrote:
You will be missed....so you better enjoy every second of your adventure to the fullest and soak it all in. Can't wait to reunite. Big hug 08.06.2022, 21:52:56